Besides, SOFA is known to run just as fine on other GNU/Linux distributions (Fedora, CentOS, Arch Linux).

CMake

SOFA uses the CMake build system, and requires at least version 2.8.8.

CMake supports out of source builds (aka shadow builds), which means that all the files created during the build process will end up in a specific directory, rather than piling up in your source directory. This keeps the source directory clean, and allows you to have multiple builds for the same source tree (e.g. a debug and a release build).

Ccache

If you work on Linux or OS X, we advise you to use ccache. As explained on the ccache website:

“ccache is a compiler cache. It speeds up recompilation by caching previous compilations and detecting when the same compilation is being done again.”

It is by no means mandatory, but it will dramatically improve the compilation time if you make changes to SOFA.

About SOFA

SOFA is an open-source framework targeting at real-time simulation, with an emphasis on medical simulation.